#not a real analysis

[codenamesazanka]

extremely questionable methodology but i compiled all the dialogue spoken between Shigaraki and Deku starting from when Shigaraki breaks out of AFO’s control in Chapter 379 up to Chapter 412.

(There are chapters where they appear but do not speak. Those are the chapter numbers.)

The takeaway is that Shigaraki is extremely chatty! A lot of it is taunts, but Shigaraki’s also revealing a lot of stuff about his plans and his opinions.

Deku does not seem as interested in returning the conversation, however. Whenever he does speak, it’s less in response to any of the content of Shigaraki’s chatter, and more heroic statements of intent. (The ‘you’re still human’ is the only direct refutation, I think.)

To be fair, his focus is all on surviving Shigaraki’s attacks. Nearly all his internal thoughts are strategy - combining a quirk with this quirk, how exactly he can physically stop Shigaraki. Additionally, before Chapter 410, he was probably too worried about All Might; while for most of Chapter 412, he was asphyxiating. Hard to chat when so much shit is happening.

And you can argue Shigaraki is just Villain monologuing. Deku doesn’t have to pay attention to anything he says - a lot which are, after all, taunts - he doesn’t have to engage with Shigaraki’s dumb rants.

His goal is to save Shigaraki/The Crying Child, and only that - not like talking or asking questions about anything or responding is required for that.

#nalslastworkingbraincell #not a real analysis #just shoddy observation #structure is another element #just because Deku doesn’t respond and just because his thoughts hold no reflection on Shigaraki’s word #doesn’t mean he’s not listening and saving it to memory for later #but it is disappointing to view on paper #the thing is i am not opposed to deku saving shigaraki #i am opposed to lackluster writing #’shredding the rug’ touched my shriveled heart #then it turned out to not be the actual meaning/translation #now team OFA is hoping to pry open a mental wound to strike directly at Shigaraki’s consciousness and presumably find Inner Tenko #because Deku isn’t getting through to Shigaraki #but ‘getting through’ so far is the dialogue we have up there #which i think was barely an attempt #so like #none of this is satisfactory #at this point why bother saving the guy #just knock him out and use Eri to revert him to the crying five year old #that’s essentially the same regard Deku has towards Shigaraki #not the actual person #but the inner child he saw inside

[ambrosiagourmet]

I want to talk about why I think this is the one of the most important Falin panels:

So, Falin is really nice, right? It's one of the first things we really learn about her. She's kind even to the monsters of the dungeon - choosing to ward the party rather than fight spirits and cause them needless harm.

In the above early flashback in chapter 11, we see Marcille fawning over Falin's kindness, calling her an angel. Namari calls her soft-hearted. We see Falin choose not to fight even when a zombie attacks - instead she resolves the confrontation with a hug. After the flashback, the first thing Senshi says is that Falin "sounds like quite the person," which Marcille strongly affirms.

At this point in the story, all we have seen of Falin are these impressions; she is a healer, an angel, a caretaker with an infinite well of kindness towards everyone she meets - both friend and foe.

And honestly, that remains most of what we have to go by to understand her. The only times we get to see Falin on the page, alive and just herself, are in the opening and closing pages of the story and in the brief period of time after she is resurrected.

Nonetheless, we do have some more details to work with. For one, there is the scene that The Panel is from - a short memory in chapter 75, when Marcille flashes back to while she's dying. In that scene, Falin prepares to teleport them all out, and says that she's sorry "if there is a person at [their] destination." And that's when we get The Panel.

If you teleport someone or something into another person, the person teleported into is likely to be, at minimum, severely injured. They could die.

We can see a lovely little horrifying example of exactly why in one of the Daydream Hour doodles:

So, hmm. That's not... that's not SUPER nice. Certainly not displaying the same "kindness to all, friend and foe included" we saw represented earlier. On a basic level, this adds some nuance to Falin's kindness. We see it break a little, when pushed to the limit. We see her chose to protect the people she loves above all else.

Which makes sense! As Laios says when the Winged Lion accuses him of similarly being motivated more by his friends' safety than everyone else in the dungeon, "...most people, aside from virtuous do-gooders, would feel the same way."

So, we can take The Panel as simply showing a moment of weakness for Falin. A time when she was pushed to her limits, and that "most people" selfish side of her shone through.

However... I think there's a little more going on with Falin than just her being an angel 99% of the time, except just that once. I love The Panel because I think it helps us understand that Falin isn't just motivated by kindness - she also has a desire to avoid seeing people in pain.

Isn't that the same thing?

No, no it very much is not.

Let's look at a short comic from the Falin section of the Adventurer's Bible, because I think it illustrates this point perfectly. The group is complaining about how much Marcille's healing hurts, and comparing it to Falin's, which "doesn't hurt a bit." Marcille retorts with the following:

Now, the punchline of this comic is that, despite Marcille's sentimental assertion that she's "thinking of [them]" by letting her healing magic hurt, they all still prefer to be healed by Falin.

But hey, this wouldn't be the first time that Dungeon Meshi hides a very real character beat or insight in a gag, so let's think about this somewhat seriously.

If Marcille is right (and she knows a fair bit about magic, so we can assume that she has at least somewhat of a point), then what Falin is doing isn't kind. I suppose if someone specifically requested to not feel the pain, it could be kind, but that's not really what happened here. She is the one who felt badly about the others being in pain, and she is the one who decided, without telling them or giving them a choice in the matter, to take away that pain.

Both Marcille and Falin are healing the party, but Marcille is doing it in a way that accomplishes the task in the most straight forward way, without any additional interference. Falin is going out of her way to perform the healing in a way she is more comfortable with. A way that avoids pain.

Going back the The Panel, I don't think its a coincidence that the only time we see Falin (well, non-chimera Falin) willing to do something that could hurt someone is when any potential pain will be far away from her. If she got someone hurt or killed by teleporting the party to the surface? Not only would it be far out of her sight, but she'd be dead before she had to deal with any consequences of that action.

Falin is not a confrontational person. She doesn't push when Marcille won't tell her the truth about the resurrection, and she comforts Laios about her own death - both of those things happening in the only full chapter she is alive and conscious in the whole story.

We also know that she considered accepting Shuro's proposal, despite not having any special feelings towards him, and that Falin never explained to Marcille that she wanted them to share a meal together. When she brought Marcille various foods at the academy, she just accepted Marcille's confused rejection and gave up.

And lastly, we know that she is still in contact with her parents, despite the neglect and abuse she suffered at their hands. Although the way someone chooses to handle contact with abusive or bad family is a complicated topic, which I don't want to overly simplify, I do I think this fact gets at the heart of how she handles conflict.

So many people that Falin loves have hurt her. There are understandable hurts, like Laios leaving the village, or Marcille not understanding the food. And there are bigger, far less justifiable hurts - like her parents neglecting her throughout her childhood, and sending her away to be alone at the magic academy.

It doesn't seem like Falin has ever confronted any of it directly.

And the unhealthy aspects of this kind of avoidance of pain and confrontation is one of the things that the story of Dungeon Meshi is all about. We see Laios grapple with it before he goes to kill Falin, and we see Marcille acknowledge it at the end of the story, when she tells Laios that she has come to terms with Falin's death:

Eating is a part of life. Consuming other living things is a part of life. It isn't really possible to avoid that pain - you can only hide from the truth of it. You have to be selfish everyday. You have to eat - to choose to live. To choose to take up space.

And this is something Falin embraces, too. She comes back to life, after all.

We see her choose to come back to life.

And how does she make that choice? She eats. She consumes, and then she is asked a question by the manifestation of hunger itself:

Do you want to eat more?

There is a double meaning in the Winged Lion's final words on the next page.

When I first read this, I took it as him saying: life is cruel. You will suffer. You will feel more pain.

But perhaps, especially for Falin, this also means: you are choosing a path where you must cause pain. Where you must consume. Where you must take, and must be selfish. Because eating is the special privilege of the living, and it is their burden, too. In order to stay alive, she will need to keep eating.

And she chooses that. Chooses to be selfish. It's why her resurrection scene is so important, and it's why The Panel is so important. Because Falin coming back isn't the ultimate reward for all of the party's hard work.

It's her choice. Just like it was her choice that started everything in the first place. But this time, she doesn't choose to accept causing pain for the sake of Marcille and Laios. She does it for her own sake.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #falin touden #dunmeshi analysis #I love it when dungeon meshi says. the trauma was real and it changed you #and the way you are because of it isn’t anything to be ashamed of #but you have to keep living. you have to chose to keep living. #and you can #dungeon meshi spoilers

[artist-issues]

Look I know Rapunzel paints and Tiana cooks, but if you guys don't think Mulan is the Most Creative Disney Princess, you're wrong.

She's literally introduced in this perfect scene that highlights her whole character, flaws and strengths:

The first time you see her she's:

Cheating, which is totally the opposite of what honor-code General Shang would do.

Undisciplined, which is what going to the army fixes.

Problem-solving—by writing the recitation she can't remember on her wrist—

BUT LISTEN. That last one is the first hint you have that she's the Most Creative Disney Princess. Because guess what? She's not the first young woman to cheat at the matchmaker test. The Matchmaker specifically checks to see if she's cheating when the test begins. But the rest of them wrote their cheat sheet on their fans.

The Matchmaker was prepared for the usual kind of tricks. But Mulan's full of her own ideas, not everyone else's.

You guys know the rest. She dresses up like a soldier—nobody suspects her because the idea that someone would do that never occurs to everyone else. She climbs the pole by tying the medallions around each other when none of the other recruits can figure it out. She lights the cannon by grabbing Mushu instead of searching for flints. She creates an avalanche instead of just taking Shan Yu out. She tricks the Huns by dressing her friends up as concubines. She defeats Shan Yu with his own sword and a bunch of fireworks.

But even beyond problem-solving, Mulan never does things like other people do. She doesn't even do things like other women do.

She doesn't just walk across a bridge, she jumps from pillar to pillar. She doesn't just bring her father tea, she puts a spare teacup in her sleeve because she knows she's clumsy.

Mulan is creative. But you know what that moment proves? That she's not just a representation of all women-versus-men. Mulan is representative of a human, who sees where she has strengths, and sees where she has weaknesses. She uses her strengths to her advantage and works to improve or make up for her weaknesses. She doesn't try to be exactly like a man. She just tries to use what she's got to do the right thing. And finding ways to use what you've got, even if it's not like what everyone else has, is creativity.

#Mulan #Mulan meta #hua Mulan #fa Mulan #General Shang #Shang #china #Disney #real Disney #Tom Bancroft #Disney's Mulan #animated Mulan #mulan 1998 #meta #character analysis #Rapunzel #Tiana #Disney Princess #Disney princesses

[gallusrostromegalus]

Kenpachi Realizes Nobody Else Actually Read The Employee Handbook And Decides To Get Inventive, A Story In A Ranking Chart

Yamamoto Thought He Was Punishing Everyone Including Zaraki By Making Him Actually Fill Out That Report, Was Not Ready For Zaraki To Deliver A Twelve Hundred Slide Powerpoint Category Seven Autism Infodump About It A Week Later, A Sequel

#Bleach #Bleach Fanfic #AEIWAM #An Elephant Is Warm And Mushy #kenpachi zaraki #the key difference between Canon Zaraki and AEIWAM Zaraki is about 500 Menial Labor Jobs worth of practical skills and skepticism #For real though if yamamoto made Zaraki fill out a Report on everyone fighting ability the lad would go hog fucking wild #Yamamoto has never seen analysis like this #Yamamoto would prefer not to see analysis like this #but he DID ask and Zaraki is having so much fun he feels bad interrupting

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

something i like about nona's family is that they're so like, almost a perfect little nuclear family, and then just. not.

like. pyrrha is "the person who works for her" but also the one who makes breakfast and does the dishes. she's a woman quite literally posessing the body of a cis man and really leaning into the look, honorarily trans in both directions, working construction and shaving in the mornings and braiding nona's hair before school.

and then there's camilla, her...nagging wife? troublemaking older child? roomate who she barely gets along with? the fact that palamedes shares this role is doubly weird. he's a man literally posessing the body of a cis woman, and they're both pyrrha's nagging wife/problem child/roomate. i don't personally believe that anything explicitly or overtly sexual was happening between her and either of them, but i completely understand where people who think that are coming from. and it's fucking weird (affetionate?).

even nona occupies a weird place in this dynamic. like. pyrrha is definitely a parent to her but camilla, who takes a much more active role in her daily life, is...idk. nona has a crush on her and wants to marry her and adopt dogs. camilla's feelings for nona are more parental or older-sisterly, in that she cares for her and wants to protect her, and if her feelings are more complicated than that, it's because of the obvious aspects of the situation which make her extremely sad and apprehensive of the future. her affection for nona seems relatively simple.

and then there's palamedes, who is in theory another parental figure (see: camilla's "i'll talk to your mother later" face, or pyrrha's "you're going to make someone a really irritating wife one day, sextus"), but in nona's view of things he seems like something more along the lines of an older sibling, or perhaps a cool uncle, which is funny because pyrrha arguably treats him more like a spouse than she does camilla.

it's all just so fucking weird and jumbled up on itself. pyrrha will kiss camilla on the head and say "i'll be home for dinner, dear," and then turn around and call both her and nona "daddy's own treasures" (don't get me started). she'll kiss palamedes and camilla both on the mouth and tell them she loves them. she'll tell them she didn't love them well, or even wholesomely, and she won't explain what she means by wholesome.

alecto calls her "mother and father." alecto tells her she should've given into her urges and eaten them.

palamedes and camilla are second cousins and queerplatonic and married and the same person and by the start of the book the lines between them are already dissolving.

nona is so so young and she's so so old and she's not so much younger than camilla and she's older than pyrrha can even comprehend and some days she needs help getting her shirt over her head.

and most importantly they all love each other. it's a weird and confused and unhealthy love. it's a love full of tension and annoyance and fear. it's a love that wants very badly to fit a category and can't. but it's love it's love it's love and even when it's over even when it has nowhere left to go it's not gone it can't be gone. it's over it's done you can't take loved away.

#i started out writing a very normal analysis of their dynamics and got increasingly emotional as it went on #but i kinda like the way it reads now so i'm not gonna edit for tone #enjoy watching me spiral in real time #nona the ninth #nona of new rho #the locked tomb #tlt #my post

[highseas-swede]

Becoming Real

Recently Good Omens Prime Twitter account posted a BTS photo of Aziraphale and Furfur and it started the gears in my head turning, trying to parse it. It's only just now that it finally coalesced into a proper thought.

I kept thinking Aziraphale reminded me of something, especially when compared to the other angels. Look at him next to pre-Jim Gabriel, Uriel, Michael... heck, even Furfur, who he's standing next to right now.

Furfur is a demon, but his outfit is impeccable, it's sleek and stylish. The angel's suits in heaven are all pressed and flawless and New.

But not Aziraphale. He's dressed in old human clothes, his waistcoat is worn and tattered and long-loved. Aziraphale is, as Michael put it, like an old sofa. Worn and comfortable. He could choose to look basically however he wants, but instead he chooses to clothe himself in actual human clothes, to eat human food, to enjoy human entertainment - books, music, plays, etc. He does this despite the fact that it actively makes the other angels dislike him and find him unpalatable.

And that's what stuck out to me. Because unlike those other angels and demons, Aziraphale doesn't feel distant from humanity. He might be odd or eccentric to humans, but they don't question his humanity. He doesn't stand out to them in the way that the other angels do when they show up.

It occurred to me that this is because unlike the other angels... Aziraphale is Real.

Have you ever read The Velveteen Rabbit? There's a scene in it where they talk about what it means to be Real:

This made me think of Aziraphale. About how the other angels are these pristine things, kept aloof from the world, and then there's Aziraphale, who is worn and shabby, who's lived on earth for millennia among the humans. He's loved and learned and experienced what being human is like and because of that he's Real in a way that the other angels aren't. Humans have personhood, a sense of agency, a sense of self. Angels and demons have only the divine plan, as Beelzebub and Gabriel noted, that's all they live for "if you can call it living".

But what strikes me the most is how potentially devastating Aziraphale's Realness will be to Heaven. They only succeed at keeping angels in line because they're undistracted from the Great Plan. We see how Gabriel - as Jim - takes to cocoa after trying it. We see how quickly Muriel becomes fascinated with books.

Now consider that this is the angel they're putting in charge of Heaven. This worn, shabby, old sofa of an angel who has an endless well of love, for Crowley, for the world and the humans in it. He doesn't seem dangerous in the slightest. He seems Fragile.

But he is dangerous. So very dangerous.

But it's not because he's a guardian, not because he's a warrior, not because he's the Angel of the Eastern Gate who leads a battalion and was issued a flaming sword. He gave all of that away and it's worth noting that this is the first actual choice we see him make in the show, the thing that sets him apart in Crowley's eyes, and it wasn't even Crowley's doing! Aziraphale made a choice to give the mortals his sword out of compassion and it is a sense of compassion we don't see from the other angels.

His deviations all stem from that initial act. It takes him from being this two-dimensional cardboard entity existing only as part of the Divine Plan and set him on the path to actual Personhood.

It doesn't happen right away, of course, because as the Skin Horse says:

"It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

And doesn't that sum up Aziraphale? He's shabby and worn and he's beautiful to the people who understand and appreciate that being Real means being imperfect, and that every imperfection is still beautiful.

No wonder the angels mock his corporation, his flaws, all the things he enjoys that make him less than what they think he should be. We see evidence over and over that Aziraphale is essentially "ugly" to them. But that's because they don't understand.

Aziraphale's Realness, his personhood, what Crowley has helped nurture from the Wall of Eden all the way to that last desperate kiss, is what really matters. Good Omens has always been about People being fundamentally People. It's the underlying current that ties everything together, for good or for ill. People have agency. People have self-actualization. People have the ability to make their own choices, for good or for evil.

And now Aziraphale has that too.

That's the very real danger he presents to heaven.

Because we've already seen that any angel, given sufficient time and interaction with humans could be like Aziraphale. All it takes is one small opening, one bite from the apple. Whether deliberately or not, Crowley tempted Aziraphale into every step, the way he tempted Eve in the garden. He gave Aziraphale the knowledge of Right and Wrong, presented him with the option, the way he did with humanity. Were they even really human before Crowley? Did he give them free will? His actions cast them out of paradise, but did it ultimately set them free? Has he struggled for millennia to do the same for the angel he's loved so well and for so long?

Does Crowley know how horribly, wonderfully well he succeeded?

Bringing Aziraphale back to Heaven, putting him in charge, was the absolute worst thing the Metatron could have done for keeping the status quo and it's not because of Aziraphale's fighting prowess. It's because of the small Human acts of kindness and pettiness that Aziraphale is capable of. That's not going to go away when he's in Heaven. It's going to spread. He's going to infect Heaven with Humanity. It's going to be so slow and gradual that they won't see it coming until it's far too late.

It's not going to be the way that Aziraphale intends to change Heaven and yet, it will surely ultimately be what really makes a difference.

I wonder too, if maybe that's some subconscious part of it. After seeing Gabriel change, seeing Muriel change, I wonder if there's not some part of Aziraphale that realizes that Heaven is a miserable place that makes miserable people. He'll extend compassion to them that they don't deserve and don't know they're missing and he'll surely go on with whatever his own Plan - with a capital P, of course - is and he won't even realize what he's actually done.

And then, like the ending of S1, like the ending of S2, the ultimate deciding factor will not be who is the best warrior, who is the strongest. It will be about the Human element.

Metatron thought he could control Aziraphale, bring him in line by bringing him back to Heaven. He wants to take away the human element of Aziraphale and shove him back into that Obedient Little Angel shaped mold and he doesn't realize it's not possible anymore. Aziraphale's grown. He'll never fit, he'll never be that again. There is no going back anymore.

As the Skin Horse says: "Once you are Real, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

And Real things, things with depth and purpose and will, are impossible to ever truly control.

#Good Omens #Aziraphale #good omens meta #good omens s2 #crowley #crowley x arizaphale #Analysis #the velveteen rabbit #what it means to be Real

[comradekatara]

people tend to talk more about the doll iroh gives azula as a spoil of war that directly illustrates iroh’s attitude of colonial paternalism, but there’s something so fascinating to me about how iroh gives zuko a knife that says “made in earth kingdom” on one side and “never give up without a fight” on the other, reducing a call to action, direct resistance through any means necessary, into an abstract, inspirational quote. a weapon that symbolizes the strength of a nation of resist imperialist conquest/colonial occupation is put in the hands of a ten year old who has no way of truly understanding the implications of that slogan. of course, zuko eventually does come to understand, and he does refuse to give up without a fight, as does iroh, but at the time that iroh gives zuko the knife, he is perverting that symbol of revolutionary action & resistance into a colonial artifact, a mere child’s plaything, its blade dulled and its power denied through the act of gifting it to the sheltered prince of the nation against whom they are fighting. yes, zuko has his own fight, and must face his own struggles, and he is largely defined by his persistence, so it’s easy to forget what this knife means within its original cultural context: “made in earth kingdom” isn’t just a dismissive joke, it’s also a grave reminder of who iroh was, what his “gifts” represent, and where they came from.

#analysis #iroh #zuko #there’s smth so sick & twisted to me about how upon receiving the knife zuko immediately playacts his own theatrical death #it’s adorable of course #but it’s also like. this is theater to him. it isn’t real. god….

[somegrumpynerd]

Do you think it bothers Dust that Killer doesn't seem to have any remorse for doing the same things that haunt him in a very literal way? Do you think it bothers Killer that Dust pretends not to feel anything when he's lost the luxury of feeling? Do you think it bothers Horror to hear that Cross was raised with his Alphys like a sister when his betrayed him? Do you think it bothers Cross that Horror is part of the gang when he still has an au and people to go back to, where Cross feels like he'll never have his again? Do you think Nightmare gets them all happy meals when they've been good?

#UTDR #UTMV #Nightmare sans #Bad sanses #I'm not tagging everybody for this because I turned it silly #It was a lil bit real analysis I just can't be serious for too long or I'll die #I just wonder about potential tension in the gang #And whether or not they all get happy meal toys to play with so Nightmare can have peace for an hour

[shiraishi-kanade]

An Shiraishi does not have communication issues. An has many issues, but communication ones isn't one of them.

The actual reason she doesn't tell Kohane or the rest of VBS shit is because the moment she realizes any of her issues don't have a quick and reliable fix she switches to "fuck it, we ball" mindset about them and that's infinitely funnier and more interesting than her not being able talk things out.

#project sekai #prsk #pjsk #an shiraishi #pjsk character analysis #jay's character analysis #kind of #his is very short but I needed to tackle that somewhat common an mischaracterisation real quick

[nancyfilm]

remember when nancy couldn't say "i love you" to steve so she sat on the car with jonathan to have a heart-to-heart conversation.

and remember when mike couldn't say "i love you" to el so he sat on the car with will to have a heart-to-heart conversation.

and the fact that wheelers are on the left and byers on the right and there are soda cans in both scenes. wheelers are opening up about their feeling while byers are hearing and comforting them... come on! that has to mean something!

#this parallel has to mean something #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #jancy #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #stranger things #byler is real #st #byler is canon #byler is endgame #nancy and jonathan #mike and will #stranger things analysis #jonathan and nancy

[siriusly-the-best-bi]

But also can I just say,

The Second Crowley slid those glasses back on (you know when) I knew. I knew it wasn’t going to be the ending we dreamed of (yet) and I knew what kind of turn that meant the narrative was taking. I just am so thankful for the metaphor and the theme of the glasses and their use throughout the story and it’s so beautiful and honestly one of my favourite bits of the show.

This whole season, when around Aziraphale Crowley’s almost always had his glasses off if the circumstances allowed. The second he was safe and comfortable and with Aziraphale the glasses always slide off and are tossed about like they’re not his armor and something he relies so heavily on.

The second I watched him put those glasses on when it was just him and Aziraphale face to face, my heart broke because I knew.

There’s so much more to say on this I might write an essay tomorrow but I’m just in love with Crowley and the metaphor of his glasses

#he’s just so REAL #its all so real #its beautiful #i love u mr gaiman sir #bi.f.shit #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #gos2ep6 spoilers #crowley #good omens analysis

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The four alignments of Tummy Hurt

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #lan wangji #nie huaisang #bonus comic #Brought to you by: *my* tummy hurts #This is in teen-era for the sole fact that it was imperative that Teen Wangji be granted that caption #I too was a teen with extremely high expectations that gave me stress stomach pain. There's no way lwj's tummy doesn't hurt all the time #NHS says his tummy hurts to 1) get attention 2) get out of situations 3) act as a distraction so the real tummy hurt havers can sneak out #I never would have thought making a tummy hurt alignment chart would be a character analysis but #The underpinning logic here is about how these guys go through the motion of pain. I have a lot of thoughts that would exceed tag limits #I also just want to take the time to say: You don't have to be brave about it. No matter the pain you face. #Your tummy can hurt and you can tell people and be loud about it <3

[gingerhastoomanyobsessions]

the lords in black are so interesting to me because. they’re so us. we’re watching the citizens of hatchetfield suffer for our own entertainment just as much as they are. we’re their accomplices in all of it

pokotho made hatchetfield into a musical because musicals are entertaining. and we ate that shit up! it’s soooo fun watching a little man scramble as the world around him bursts into song. the musical genre is satirized because pokey knows how the genre conventions work just as well as we do. we like watching musicals so much that black friday and npmd are musicals, too, even though they don’t revolve around pokotho’s plans as much as tgwdlm. we want them to sing. pokotho does too.

bliklotep is the audience and the audience is bliklotep. trail to oregon calls the audience “the watcher with one thousand eyes” and that’s not all, in watcher world blinky seems to be able to see through the eyes of anyone and everyone who loves spectacle. he wants to see the characters go through angst because WE love angst. it’s fun to watch alice and bill express their buried frustrations. blinky wants it to end in bloodshed because he loves tragedy, and let’s face it, so do we. it’s like that one post about how hamlet is aware of the audience and is angry that we don’t do anything to intervene because we want to see how it plays out. personally, I think blinky could have stopped the woodwards if he really wanted (he’s an elder god, after all) but alice shooting him shifted the narrative so that the emotional payoff would be more fulfilling if they escaped. and blinky loves a good story.

t’noy karaxis has blorbos. we joke about it, but that’s really what it is, isn’t it? he’s the fan who watches the movie again and again and again and again to see his favorite character’s dramatic death scene. he’s the guy who writes and reads angst fics by the hundreds because he likes to see his faves cry. he’s the hatchetfield enjoyer who’s on the edge of their seat waiting to see how ted kicks the bucket this time. the bastard’s box is pretty much just an ao3 account filled with whump and hurt no comfort. he’s sadistic AND he genuinely adores ted, because we fans are often cruelest to the characters we love the most. he puts ted through character growth— the realization that his life went the way it did because of his own mistakes, his inability to be vulnerable with jenny before it was too late— and he does that by writing a 56-chapter angst fic that’s still updating to this day

nibblenephim is the fan who voraciously devours every scrap of content that a creator produces and demands more, more, more. let’s face it, the fandom will never let starkid rest until we see this story through to its end. and then someone will demand a sequel series. nibbly is hungry because we will never stop yearning for more stories. he’s simple because that desire itself is simple— as humans, we need creativity like we need air to breathe. nibbly wants more because we want more. and we will never be satiated.

wiggog y’rath is the ruler and the king because he’s the self-inserting writer. I think jon matteson plays paul *and* wiggly for a reason— wiggly is the only lord in black to be played by the same actor in every single show, and that actor also plays the protagonist of tgwdlm. wiggly wants to be the protagonist. he tries to force himself into the human world of hatchetfield because he wants to participate, dammit! he wants to be the bestest ruler that the earth has ever seen! everyone has to love him because he’s going to be their bestest fwiend! when he appears in human form he’s gonna be the prom king! he’s the ebony dark’ness dementia raven way of the hatchetfield multiverse. he wants every human character to bend to his whims and to love him and to put him at the tippy-top of planet earth because he’s the writer and the writer’s main character, you fuckheads, and he can make whatever story he wants, whether the other characters like it or not! if you’ve ever written a self-insert story? congratulations! you’ve been wiggog y’rath.

and the funny thing? I don’t think the lords know that they, too, are as fictional as anyone else in hatchetfield. maybe blinky knows— he sees through the audience’s eyes, after all— but I don’t think the others do. if they did, maybe they’d be a little less tyrannical. a little bit nicer.

but then the starkid writers wouldn’t have much of a story to tell, would they?

#the lords in black #starkid #hatchetfield #hatchetverse #npmd #join me in the metafiction analysis hole. #the real villains of hatchetfield are the starkid writers themselves and those of us who want to see the shows! #the only reason the lords in black fuck up the world is because WE want to see that story!!!!! #note: the ‘you fuckheads’ bit was meant to be in wiggly’s voice/pov. I do not think the good people of starkid fandom are fuckheads.

[persona-brainrot-real]

Uhhh does anyone else wanna discuss ryuji the hotheaded vulgar boy who acts before he thinks and always yells at authority being the immediate person to keep Makoto from getting into fights when they first go to Kaneshiro’s palace or am I the only person going crazy abt it

Like wdym the guy who usually charges in headfirst no question no hesitation is the person keeping her from getting into fights that she pre-awakening would not be able to handle. Wdym he’s staying level headed for her safety. Wdym he’s the first to get mad and lash out at unfair authority or to enjoy fighting Shadows but knows to pick his battles to preserve someone else’s safety over his own. Especially when this is before they start knowing and trusting each other so he’s just doing it for her because he’d do it for anyone. Does anyone else hear this

#persona 5 #p5 #persona 5 royal #p5r #ryuji sakamoto #makoto niijima #they are everything to me your honour #persona brainrot real #p5 analysis

[mumbledramblings]

i had a vision from god the other night

anyway i love how some of wolfwood's first character-establishing scenes in both animes is him trying to scam people

#trigun #trigun stampede #tristamp #trigun 98 #tri98 #trigun fanart #nicholas d wolfwood #nicholas d. wolfwood #mid draws #idk if anyone has done this yet #had a full on eureka moment earlier about how wolfwood's cover for being a gung-ho gun isn't being a priest #it's being a con artist pretending to be a priest #like it is SO obvious he isn't a real priest/undertaker that people just immediately think “oh this guy is just a con artist” #and they don't think any further #so the reveal of “oh hey i'm actually part of an anti-human terrorist organization (though not necessarily willingly)” is an actual surpris #because you think he's just a con man who's really bad at his job #i feel like the last person to come to this conclusion 😶 #genuine character analysis? in MY memes? it's more likely than you think

[whoisspence]

his little face scrunch i'm dying

#why is he so cute #i wanna put him in my pocket #rossi is so real for that #spencer reid #doctor spencer reid #david rossi #criminal minds #bau #bau team #behavioral analysis unit #whoisspence